


They Promised

by MMChibi



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Character Development, Childhood Friends, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Family, Friendship, Hurt, Introspection, Memories, Not Canon Compliant, Other, POV Third Person Limited, Personal Growth, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 17:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15668235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MMChibi/pseuds/MMChibi
Summary: Aqua travels through the realm of darkness and seeks hope in her own memories only to uncover a painful truth. Plagued by doubts and phantoms she slips ever closer to the darkness.





	They Promised

Aqua was trying to remember. She needed to conjure up a memory, any memory, anything happy and warm and stable. That was the most important thing, stable. Something not bathed in swirling darkness. She needed to ground herself, to focus. She needed something that would keep her walking forward.

Aqua found a memory, it was a drifting, flickering ember, lost in a churning black sea. She reached out for it and slowly constructed the scene in her mind. She remembered the soft blue and gold rug in the sitting room, the one Terra once set on fire. She remembered the ugly green sofa that Master Eraqus always refused to get rid of. When Aqua and Terra were little they would sit together on that lumpy old thing as Master Eraqus read to them. Aqua and Terra would lay with their heads touching and their little legs up over the arm rests, staring at the ornate gold chandelier above, until their eyes saw spots. 

Aqua stopped walking, sighing, a little smile playing on her lips. Ven had knocked that chandelier down once. Well, really it had been Terra and Ven. Terra had been tearing through the house at full speed in a game of chase with Ven. Ven got more competitive than he probably should have and, true to his namesake, summoned a torrential burst of wind magic right there in the sitting room, attempting to catch up with his older brother. This obviously ended in the room being torn apart and the chandelier smashing to the floor. 

Aqua remembered walking into the carnage, a tray of tea and biscuits slipping from her fingers in shock and clattering against the wood floor joining the rest of the destruction. Terra, popped up from behind the fallen sofa that was resting with its back on the floor. He held his head and looked around dazed. His eyes first fell on Ven who lay flat on the floor, limbs splayed, only a foot away from the wreckage of the chandelier. Terra locked eyes with Aqua and the two shared a fearful look since they knew what fury was to come from Master Eraqus.

“WOOHOO!” Ven threw his arms up in victory. “Did you guys see that?! I did it! I finally did magic!” Ven jumped to his feet excitedly only to have the look instantly melt off his face as he saw what he had caused.

“That was amazing Ven!” Terra exclaimed, clumsily trying to get over the sofa. 

“B-but I- I’m sorry!” Ven guestrured uselessly with his arms.

“Hey, Hey, it’s alright. It was probably my bad for getting you so worked up anyway. Don’t worry about it.” Terra finally managed to get out from behind the sofa without falling over it and crossed the room to hook his arm around Ven’s shoulders giving one of his signature smirks that Aqua knew was all for show. 

“But-!” Ven started.

“Nope! Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of everything, right Aqua?” Terra looked to Aqua who still stood in the doorway, her hands over her mouth. Terra’s smirk wavered as he met Aqua’s fearful gaze and he pleaded with his eyes. “Right sis?”

Aqua remembered the scene and let it wash over her. She wanted to try and capture this memory’s warmth. The whole thing seemed funny now, a trivial problem that had been so earth shaking in the past. Aqua chuckled to herself and the action almost hurt. When was the last time she had laughed? Really laughed, not out of manic despair or crippling irony, but out of joy? Aqua closed her eyes to seal herself away from the neverending darkness for just a moment. That’s all she needed, just a second of this memory’s triviality, then she could go on.

“That wasn’t the end of it.” A familiar voice chided.

Aqua was in a fighting stance, keyblade in hand, before her eyes were even open. Every nerve ending in her body electric, her blood turned to ice. But it was too late, Aqua wasn’t where she had been before. Her shoes crunched shards of glass below them and Aqua backed up into a wall that hadn’t been there a second before.

Aqua looked around wildly. The darkness had changed, shifted and twisted into what was meant to be Aqua’s safe haven. Aqua was here, in the Land of Departure, in her home, in her sitting room, just as she had just been imagining it down to every bit of glass and paper littering the floor, every tear in the wallpaper. Could she really be home? Could Aqua really be back?

There was a split second of euphoria, of pure joy and that moment of hope made the crash infinitely worse. Aqua felt something in herself crack, shatter like the chandelier and come raining down around her. A scream ripped itself out of her and she was on her knees battering her own head, pulling at her hair. It was in her mind! It had gotten to her, the darkness. It was in her head. It was in her. It had looked inside her and made this place appear. It was using her own memories against her now. Nothing was safe. Everything could be twisted and broken. Nothing pure was untainted. 

Terror gripped Aqua. It was too late. It was only a matter of time now before the darkness took her heart. There was no way to fight this. If Aqua had already fought her reflection and now her own memories than what part of her was left? If there had been cracks in her armor before they were now holes.

Aqua trembled, rocking back and forth on her knees. Air came in pained sobs and she was digging her own fingernails into her arms. Aqua was wishing, praying that when she looked up it would be gone. Please let it be gone. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. But there was glass cutting into her knees.

“This isn’t real! You aren’t real!” Aqua shouted.

“You really are pathetic.” The apparition, that other self from the mirror, intoned boredly. Like she was getting tired of saying it. “Get up and stop lying to yourself.” The other Aqua sat, one leg crossed over the other, on a toppled over chest of drawers. Her presence made the area cold enough to see puffs of breath and frost gathering at the corners of the disastrous room. She seemed right at home in the center of the chaos. “You always were a liar. Even here. Don’t you remember?”

There was a flicker to Aqua’s left and she couldn’t look away as an image of her younger self, a ghost, took a single step into the ruined room. She stepped carefully over the dropped tray of tea toward Terra and Ven at the center of the sitting room. Young Aqua had been about to speak. She had wanted to ask Terra what on earth he was going to do? What he expected her to do. Aqua looked at her younger self’s face and wondered if she had really looked so…pitiful. All teary-eyed and pained, so conflicted when there was an obvious right thing to do here.

Then they all heard the sound of Master Eraqus stomping down the hall. The ghostly images of young Aqua, Terra, and Ven, played out the scene just like Aqua remembered while the real Aqua and her doppelganger watched transfixed. The three siblings jumped at their doom approaching, Ven clung to Terra and hid behind him, Terra gave Aqua a meaningful and imploring look, a look that meant, “do something!”. Aqua was frozen, her voice caught in her throat. 

“What in heaven’s name happened here?!” Master Eraqus appeared in the doorway, face turning red with rage and Aqua hoped, a bit of worry too.

Aqua should have told the truth right there, that she had just walked in and didn’t know what happened, that she wasn’t involved in this mess. But she couldn’t do that. Terra was staring at her, waiting, expecting her to get them out of this. Ven started to apologize but Aqua quickly cut him off.

“I’m sorry Master Eraqus! It’s- it’s my fault I-“ Aqua started, grasping for a plausible lie. She couldn’t let Terra and Ven down, she couldn’t let them take all the blame even though she deserved none of it. She felt like she had to be responsible for them. Maybe she was partially to blame, maybe she should have told them earlier to stop. What if it was her fault?

“Really?” Master Eraqus questioned, his brows furrowed and his face darkening. “It was your fault Aqua?” He looked between his three wards in turn, his gaze a search light.

“No it was me-!” Ven tried again.

“Yes, it was an accident!” Aqua said talking over Ven. “I’m so sorry, I was playing a game and-“

“Stop.” Master Eraqus said firmly before sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Aqua go to your room, I’ll talk with you later. Boys stay here.”

Aqua began to object but was stopped by a stern look from Master Eraqus. Terra cringed and Aqua gave him one last apologetic glance before she sheepishly exited the sitting room and the ghosts of the memory faded away.

“Why would you do that?” Aqua’s phantom asked, not moving from her spot on the chest of drawers.

“I don’t need to answer to you.” Aqua spat back.

“He got angry at you. Master Eraqus was much more angry at the lie than the stupid chandelier. He sat down and talked with you for hours and made the others clean up the mess. At the end of the day you made it worse for everyone but especially yourself. So why did you do it?”

“Shut up.”

“Did you really think you could be some kind of hero? Did you think you could somehow save them both from their own doing? You didn’t learn from this at all.”

“I said shut up!” Aqua summoned her keyblade leaning against it to get shakily to her feet.

“You’ve done the same thing over and over all your life and every time you expect something different. You want them to love you, to look up to you, to need you, so you let them use you. You say it’s fine because they are your friends and that’s what friends should do but when have they ever done the same? They only come to you when they need something, someway out, someone to blame, someone to take the fall.”

“You’re wrong. My friends give me strength. They are the only reason I can go on.”

“And who got you here then? You tried to warn them from the beginning. You told Ven to go home, you told Terra the truth about the darkness you could see in him, and what did they do? They blamed you. They left you.” The phantom slowly stood, the air growing colder and her eyes shining a dangerous and unnatural blue. “If they had listened to you then none of this would have happened. You wouldn’t be here and they wouldn’t have both fallen to darkness. Why did you try and save them? Why sacrifice yourself?”

Aqua grit her teeth. “They would do the same for me. They would. They were confused and being manipulated. It wasn’t their fault.” 

“Then why did Terra ignore you? Why did he leave you? Weren’t you two supposed to be a team, forever?”

There was a pang of pain in Aqua mind, a stab, memories being snatched up and pulled forth. She gripped the side of her head. There they were, moments, forced to play in sequence. Terra and Aqua meeting. Aqua shyly standing to the side as Terra welcomed Master Eraqus home with a hug and then giving one to Aqua as well. Terra had a way of instantly making Aqua feel at home in a new strange place. 

Aqua remembered walking hand in hand with Terra through the gardens and the halls. He showed her everything the Land of Departure had to offer. Terra pushed away all the fear, all the doubts, with his unwavering confidence. He told her they were brother and sister now. That they would always be together and Aqua had always believed him.

Before Ventus, the pair of them had done everything together. Terra never wanted to let Aqua out of his sight and Aqua didn’t mind. She had been alone for long enough. She treasured having a friend, having a brother, a father, a home. Terra and Aqua played and trained endlessly. Aqua fought to catch up to Terra in every skill and soon the two were happy rivals, always pushing one another. They got into trouble, Terra almost always getting them there and Aqua always getting them out of it. It hadn’t mattered then, it was just small things.

Aqua saw when Terra started to lean on her. Master Eraqus was always harder on Terra for everything, like he always expected more, like he was always watching for something in him. Aqua never knew if she should feel jealous or glad that she wasn’t treated that way. When they got in trouble it was always better if Aqua took most of the blame. It just made sense right? She got off a bit easier so why not? That's what friends did right? Aqua was happy to be needed.

Things completely changed when Ven arrived, Terra’s immediate interest in him was understandable but not the almost obsessive way with which Terra acted toward his new brother. Terra and Aqua would both sit with the sleeping Ven, they took turns until he woke up, but if they sat together Terra would only talk to the comatose Ven. It was like Aqua wasn’t there. Everyday Terra would wonder out loud about where Ven had come from, what his story was. Aqua wondered too but everyday Terra seemed to be thinking about nothing else. It was odd. Aqua shrugged it off at the time as the same passion that had made her first feel so welcome in her new home.

When Ven woke up Terra was even more involved. Aqua understood that Terra just wanted Ven to feel welcome, to feel like a part of the group but why did that mean that Aqua wasn’t included in that anymore? Why did that mean that the only thing she and Terra ever talked about anymore was Ven? 

Ven and Terra got along perfectly, they were inseparable, just how Terra and Aqua had been before. Ven admired Terra more than the sun itself, he looked to him for everything and Terra was Terra. He basked in the attention and returned it in kind, always coming up with some new game or prank for them to play. If Aqua wanted to have any kind of meaningful interaction with either of her brothers now she had to find one of them on their own, that or force herself between the two and into the picture. It made sense though right? It didn’t mean anything bad just that they were boys, right? Master Eraqus said this kind of thing was normal. So why did Aqua always feel like she was the last and worst choice?

How had all these little moments built into everything at the end? Master Xehanort manipulating all three of them. Terra… killing Master Eraqus. Killing their father. Aqua still didn’t know what had happened to either Terra or Ven but she must have failed. Terra and Ven had to be lost too, otherwise they would have come for her, right? They would have come to save her. It must have been Aqua’s fault. She must have failed. She should have done more. 

“It’s too late for that now. You need to give up.” The other Aqua said as if reading Aqua’s mind. The mirror image slowly drew closer, her movements calculated and confident. “They will never come for you because they don’t want you. No one does. Why can’t you see that. They. Left. You. They never even liked you. You just annoyed them with your caring big sister act. You’re boring and bossy. Who would want that?”

Aqua shook her head violently. “Liar! You don’t know anything.” 

“Idiot. I know everything. I know your every doubt, every dark thought. I’m the only one telling the truth and you know that i’m right.” The mirror Aqua loomed ever closer, a smirk dancing at the corner of her lips. “You’re so jealous of them. You hate them. You hate your friends and they hate you. I’m all you have left now.”

Aqua couldn't take it anymore, she screamed. It was a mistake but Aqua used her rage to push herself to her feet and point her blade, Master Eraqus’s keyblade, at the phantom. Instantly a tidal wave of fire blossomed forth, consuming everything, the doppelganger, the sitting room, and Aqua. 

Then Aqua was falling again, watching the inferno burn above her. The darkness and Aqua’s own ghosts laughing and screaming in her ears. Terra and Ven, Aqua didn’t hate them, she didn’t, she couldn’t. It wasn’t their fault. But why had they left her behind? Terra had promised they would always be a family so why? Why did he abandon her? Aqua extended her hand into the void and saw her tears falling like raindrops around her. 

“Terra, Ven… please. This isn’t how it was supposed to be.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thanks so much for reading! This is the first proper fan fic I've ever posted. I hope to continue this project as well as start others. Like I said I am new to fan fiction writing and would really appreciate any feedback or tips on using this site! I'm very friendly so please don't hold back! 
> 
> Thanks again for reading!
> 
> -Chibi


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